We Meet by Torchlight …

 

I didn’t know that electricity could be water soluble, but that seems to be a possibility at the Atuntaqui, Ecuador, Kingdom Hall.

Going to the meeting on Tuesday evening it was raining a little, but we were safely on the bus, so it didn’t bother us and we’ve learned to always bring umbrellas when it’s the rainy season. After a little while, the “wet people” started arriving at the Kingdom Hall – the rain had got heavier by now and continued throughout the evening.

The first part of the meeting went uneventfully, and then just after the last student talk (for which I was the householder), the power went off. No lights, no microphones. Apparently this is not an unusual occurrence. Before we moved north to Otavalo, friends had told us that sometimes the power went out at the Kingdom Hall, and we had already experienced it once before in the 2 months we’ve been here, when it was also raining.

And because it’s not an unusual occurrence, one brother began handing out a small collection of battery-powered torches, while others got out their mobile phones and other electronic devices, in order to shine some light on their Bibles and songbooks.

We sang the middle song without music, and with the aid of whatever light we could muster up.

At one point, some of the ceiling lights came on and then flashed on and off, and we had a mini disco for a minute or two, then darkness again.

Brendan had the last part, on “How to help those who have difficulty reading”, which was rather appropriate at that time, as we were all having difficulty reading.

Fortunately one of the brothers at the meeting had some kind of device that brought power from his car or its battery which fed into the Kingdom Hall somehow, and there was enough power for one light on the platform above where the speaker stands and for the microphones, so at least Brendan didn’t have to hold a torch at the same time as attempting to conduct his part. Because there was no light in the rest of the Hall, except for a couple of emergency lights, he said it was hard to see who had their hands up to comment as he couldn’t see their faces.

Shortly before the meeting ended, the power came on again, and we had light and music in time for the concluding song. Fortunately, Brendan didn’t have to lead us in song (he said that, not me!)

Strange as it may seem, things such as having the power go off now and then (as long as it doesn’t happen too often), and having to walk home the last 10 minutes in the rain while dodging puddles, as the bus driver wasn’t going to stop at the bus stop near our house, is one of the things I like about Ecuador.

In western lands, we get used to everything running smoothly and we expect things to continue that way in spite of difficulties such as extreme weather events, etc, and we can get very indignant when things don’t run perfectly.

Whereas here, you tend to have to take more responsibility for yourself and what happens to you and around you. I think it’s a more down-to-earth way to live. And I like it.

Snow on Mount Cotacachi (height 16204 ft / 4939 m) behind the Kingdom Hall in Atuntaqui. But it’s not cold.  If you were that close to a snowy mountain in Tasmania, Australia, you’d certainly know about it!  (Cheers to all our friends in Tassie!)

Why Are There So Many Unfinished Houses in Ecuador?

 

One thing that you soon notice when you come to Ecuador is the amount of unfinished houses and apartments in varying stages of completion.

In the bottom right hand window, you can see a big pile of sand ready for if/when building recommences

It’s quite a difference from Australia where it’s unusual to see many half-finished buildings, and where town or planning regulations, or mortgage conditions may require that a building be completed within a certain period of time.

It’s something that you can’t help noticing here, and I’ve asked around to try to understand what’s going on.

There seem to be two main schools of thought. The first being that if houses are not finished, then you don’t have to pay property tax on them.

And the second being that Ecuadorians tend to build when they have money, and when the money runs out, the building works are postponed.

It looks like they are building an additional floor onto an older ground floor

When we first moved to Cuenca, there was an apartment building under construction a couple of blocks from our house. The outside walls were up and the roof was on. And nothing happened for months. Then one day we saw workmen there, putting up internal walls, putting in the roller doors for the garage. Then after a few weeks of work, again nothing. A few months went by and we realised that somewhere in that period of time the outside of the building had been painted. Then somewhere after that the windows went in. As far as we know the building is still empty, and that’s more than two years from when we first noticed it.

There are other partly-finished buildings we’ve watched in that 2 year period and nothing has happened at all.

This mud brick house could do with a little maintenance … Or a lot …

Now, as to the first theory on why this happens – not having to pay property tax on unfinished buildings. We talked to a brother who is building a little house on some land about 1 ½ hours out of Cuenca. He pays property tax on his land and his house is barely started. It costs him all of $6 per year.

We asked a couple who have lived in Ecuador most of their lives, speak English and have lived in the States for a few years, run a business in Ecuador and are aware of what goes on in Ecuador. They disagreed with the property tax theory and said that building according to the cash available is just how Ecuadorians do things.

Unlike western countries where credit is king and most people borrow money in order to buy or build a house, apparently most Ecuadorians do not. Credit is not such a big thing here.

An article in Cuenca High Life of April 20, 2014 said:

“A new study shows that 69% of homes in Cuenca are owned by their occupants. It is the highest rate of home ownership in Ecuador, according to the Ecuador Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion.

“The study … also showed that … 62% of homes are owned outright with no mortgage …”

The finished version – sometimes that does happen!

If people do borrow in order to build a house or part of a house, generally the money is not in the form of a bank loan, rather, it comes from the government social security service at quite a low rate of interest. And when the money from that loan has been spent on building, people wait until they can save up or can afford to pay off another loan, and then continue building.

This is a new build near us – the cement is still wet

When we were first here, I found the amount of unfinished buildings a bit depressing and ugly. They are still somewhat ugly (a lot of buildings are made with concrete blocks, and unfinished, unpainted concrete blocks with boarded up windows are just not pretty!), but once you get used to it and understand why it works that way, it’s easier to live with. And you learn to “tune it out”.

This one appears to have been here a while.  On the wall is painted “se vende” (for sale)

Some houses are just not finished at all and no-one lives in them. You can tell by the state of the concrete and the weathering that they have sat there for quite a while. With some houses, it has probably been years and years. Others, maybe just months.

This one’s been here a while too – long enough for moss to start growing on the walls

Other houses may have more than one level, but only one level is finished and lived in. Most of the new houses being built here are 2 or 3 storeys and may be designed to have one family on one level, another on the next level, etc. It’s not uncommon to have 3 generations all living in the one house. So perhaps the bottom level is finished and is lived in, and the next level or two have the outside walls up, but for now, that’s that. Or maybe they didn’t even get that far.

Steelwork is often left sticking out of rooves – ready for the next level!

With the global economic downturn and people losing their houses, having to move in with their parents etc due to the cost of housing, the idea of actually having a paid-for house, even if it’s not as finished as it could be, makes a lot of sense.

A random cornfield to finish off with. The corn here grows pretty tall – it’s probably 8-10 feet high

We Go Without Internet for 2 Weeks …

One Saturday, about 3 weeks ago, we woke to find we had no internet. We weren’t all that concerned initially, as these things happen from time to time.

Sunday: still, no internet. Then I thought it would be a good idea to check to see if we had actually paid the account, which, as it turned out, we hadn’t. Somehow with moving and the general confusion, we thought it wasn’t due for another few weeks.

Monday, we head down to the internet office bright and early to pay the account. The cashier tells us that the internet will be re-connected within 15 minutes of payment.

So, we happily head for home, assuming the problem is all sorted. Alas, on getting back, still no internet. We’ll give it a bit longer, we say, as sometimes these things don’t happen straight away.
Tuesday, still no internet. By now we are thinking we need to go down to the internet office again, and feel we need to get the assistance of someone with better Spanish than us, so we call up the friendly brother who helped us with organising to rent our apartment here in Otavalo and off we all go to the internet people.

We explain the situation to the helpful internet lady, who prints out a work order and gives us the assurance that a technician would be there in the next day or two.

Then we go to a park in town that has free wi-fi to check whether we have any urgent emails. Nothing pressing, and the world is still turning without us, so we send off a couple of quick emails to explain our absence from the world wide web and head home.

(The photos in this blog have nothing to do with the topic, but add some colour to an otherwise black and white page!)

Siesta time by a river in Cuenca
 

Wednesday afternoon, we get a phone call (in Spanish of course) from the technician, who asks something which I cannot understand, and then says he will be at our place in the morning.

Thursday morning, and on into the afternoon – no technician.

Friday afternoon, we again head to the internet office (without our translator, but with the help of Brendan’s electronic tablet, set to “translate”) and endeavour to explain the problem.

The internet lady is helpful and offers “a thousand apologies” for the technician who said he would come but did not, sends an email to the supervisor of technicians, and again says someone should come Saturday or Monday. So, we stay home. By this time we are getting pretty fed up with being stuck at home, as previous to the whole internet debacle we had been home sick with a cold virus for 2 weeks.

Friday evening, we put our laptops in our backpacks and walk 5-10 minutes to a friend’s house, who lets us use their internet.

On Saturday, Brendan suggests seeing if our Ecuadorian landlady can talk to the internet people and see if that does the trick. Apparently she had been having problems with her internet too, and to make matters even more interesting, we realised the address on the work order was not correct. Addresses in Ecuador tend to be pretty vague at the best of times, but we thought that with an incorrect address, the technician didn’t stand a chance of finding us.

So, our landlady said she would go down and see them on Monday.

She must have known what to say or who to ask, as we finally got an answer that sounded promising.
The story is that the internet company are changing the lines to give better internet service, and that someone will come out in 5 days’ time to do so. And that we should be at home for them to come.

We weren’t sure if the 5 days would be the Friday or the Saturday, so early Friday I went to see our landlady to see if she knew anything further. She did, and that was that we now have a new landline number (which we didn’t know we had!), which she gave us. The problem was, she wrote the number down wrong, so then we had to find someone who had a landline (only 15% of homes in Ecuador have landlines) and who also had Caller Number Display, ring them from our new number, and have them tell us what our new phone number was!

Cows on the moooooooove

Naturally, the internet man didn’t come on the Friday, so Saturday Brendan stayed home while I went in field service. Just before I left to catch the bus, we got a phone call from an internet technician (in Spanish, naturally), and as far as I could work out he was asking, “did we have a problem with our internet, and was someone at home now?”, to which I said “yes” and “yes”. And then told Brendan excitedly that as far as I could work out, the internet man was coming, and it sounded like almost immediately.

Later in field service, around 10.30 am, I texted Brendan to see if the man had come and did we have internet. “No”, and “no”.

As the day wore on, we started to wonder, what had actually been said on the phone this morning, and was my Spanish really that bad?

But then around mid-afternoon, there’s a buzz on the intercom, and it’s the daughter of our landlady, who has walked the internet technician around the corner from their place to ours.

So, while letting the technician in, I excitedly give Brendan the “thumbs-up” sign, and we assume all our internet woes are at an end.

The technician goes to the modem and checks it, and tells us that it’s not the modem, it’s an outside problem, in the cables, and that someone will come on Monday to fix it and that someone needs to be home to verify that it’s working.

By now, Brendan is definitely not a happy little Vegemite, as we say in Australia, (2 weeks of no internet is wearing his patience thin) and after mutterings about “I could have told them it wasn’t the modem”, etc etc. we resign ourselves to a few more days of internet silence.

Photograph of a painting we saw in Quito

Monday, we stay home (again), and in the morning, while doing our meeting preparation, we hear a noise from Brendan’s laptop, which he checks and then says, “we’ve got internet!!” Fortunately, we had practically finished our study, as we could hardly contain our excitement.

If this dependence on internet sounds a bit pathetic, try living in another country for a while where, without internet, your distance contact with others in the same country is reduced to mobile/cell phone texts or calls (not always the best call quality), landline calls within the same state or province (our landline is not set up for interstate/intercountry calls), and as well, contact with your home country is now zero.

Things we take for granted, such as on-line banking with your bank back in your home country in order to transfer funds to Ecuador to pay the rent and buy food etc, now require a visit to a friend whose internet works. And anything that needs to be attended to back home gets left undone and you don’t even know it. Plus, many expat Witnesses here work on-line, and without decent and reliable internet, it’s going to hit them hard financially.

I also use Google Translate quite a bit, rather than a Spanish-English dictionary, to check on words or phrases I need to know, and without internet, that was not available either.

We have friends in our congregation who have been without landline and without internet for 4 or 5 weeks now, in spite of going down to the internet office numerous times in order to get the problem fixed.

We’re just grateful that our landlady (who is also a Witness) took up our case, as without her help, I think it likely we could still be without internet.

I think I’ll suggest to our internet-less friends that they borrow our landlady and let her sort out the internet people for them!!

Indigenous dress in Otavalo